Life Lately

While I was working on my April books post, I started looking at some of my past posts.  Lately, we have been so busy that all I have time for is my book posts (which I do mostly for me, to help track what I've read and what I think about the books).  I was reading past posts, 5 on Friday, what I'm loving, and what our boys our up to.  And I realized I miss those!  I decided to play a little catch up, so I don't forget this past year!

January

January was a BIG month for us!  We bought our first house.  We closed on the 10th, but didn't move until the 28th.  So we spent every spare second at the new house.  I painted all of the bedrooms.  Bech painted the dark paneling AND pulled up the carpet and refinished the floors.  

White paint on paneling and wood floors (before Bech refinished them) compared to the ugly carpet and dark paneling

The floors mid refinishing

Ahhh, beautiful refinished floors!

This man was seriously the MVP of January!

Our rental house looking all sorts of cray cray while we packed

We did fit in a little fun.  Here's Gil on ice skates for the first time.

February

In February, we crashed.  Seriously.

Every single one of us got the flu.  Ughhhh....

We also drove down to DC and spent several days with Ansley.  The boys loved getting a special capitol tour from their Aunt.

The view from the Speaker's balcony

Jack posing with Vermont's Ethan Allen

We also went on a White House tour.  Jack loved it...

...Gil was not impressed.

This kid is such a little poser.

We swung by Philly on our way home to visit our favorites, the Lugos.

And since Rita's had just opened for the season, we HAD to get some.

These kids are the best car travelers!

March

March was a snowy, snowy month for Vermont. 

We enjoyed a snow day together building a massive snowman.  

I will also be regretting that snow day come June, when I have to make up that snow day with in service.  Because Vermont doesn't build in snow days.  Mississippi, you need to take this moment to bask in the brilliance of built in hurricane days.  And Vermont, seriously???  It ALWAYS snows.  Why don't you build in some snow days?

And we slid down the back stairs.

We had friends over a bunch!  One night I pulled the last of the past summer's frozen blueberries out so make Bread and Wine's blueberry crumble.

We celebrated sweet Eleanor's first birthday with a beautiful unicorn party.

Jack finally read the original Jack.

And we kept hammering away at house work.

April

 

The boys opened their Easter happies.  Most notable present is Jack's watch: now when I tell him it's bedtime, he quickly corrects me.  Maybe I should have set the time wrong...

Jack, as usual, was a willing Easter photo taker.

Gil was, well Gil.

But he cheesed it up with his main squeeze, Viv.

Jack built legos and read, his two favorite things.

Also, I think the whole sibling things is going well, wouldn't you say?

Also, they share a room, so there's that...

We celebrated our favorite, Bech, with a mint chocolate chip cake.

And we had our first creemees of the year.

Jack on top of the UVM mascot, the catamount

I got to spend some time with my friends (Stowe Cider may have been involved...).

The boys and I have been really into cake baking videos lately, so we've been trying our hand at baking.  We made an ombre cake for a potluck we hosted.

And I decided to try my hand at gardening!  We are still doing our summer CSA, but I would love to eventually stop that and grow all of our summer veggies.  Here are my baby seedlings.

Whew, there's a speed recap of the past four months.  It's been busy and crazy and good.  I can't believe my first year back teaching is almost done (19 school days, but who's counting?), Jack is almost a rising 2nd grader, and Gil is almost a legit preschooler.  

We have lots of fun summer plans in the works, including a camping trip or two, a visit to Asheville, and a trip down south.  I can't wait!

SaveSave

Halloween

Happy Halloween!

Halloween this year was really fun.  Jack picked out his costume and was SUPER in character, which was hilarious.  And He was just so excited about the whole day!

We started celebrating on Friday at Jack's school.  The kids all wore their outfits and had a Halloween parade!

Saturday, we watched some Scooby Doo and Curious George's Halloween movie and made pumpkin and bat sugar cookies.  We went to a Trunk or Treat at Jack's school.  We then headed over to our friends' house for some pizza and trick or treating!

Like I said, Jack picked out his costume this year.  I figured we would have a little Darth Vader, but he wanted to be Harry Potter.  I promise, I didn't give him this idea!

And Harry needed his owl, Hedwig.

Hedwig was not a huge fan of his hat or of taking pictures.

Both outfits were pretty easy.  I found an outfit on pinterest for Hedwig and copied it using felt, buttons, a shirt, and a needle and thread (I did sew the hat with a machine but I could easily have hand sewn it).  For Jack, we spray painted his hair black, drew a lightning bolt shaped scar, and threw in a Gryffindor scarf and Harry Potter glasses.

I love my little Harry Potter characters!

EXPELLIARMUS!

Playing Catch Up

Actually, I feel like perhaps every blog post lately could have this title!  Life is just a little crazy over here at the Evans house right now--full of school, doctors visits, crying babies, wild and fun toddlers--you know, the normal.

So here's a little catch up of life lately:

T     H     A     N     K     S     G     I     V     I     N     G

We stuck around State College for Thanksgiving this year.  We had plans to spend time with two different groups on Thursday.  But on Tuesday night, we both just looked at each other and said, "Let's cancel and just stay  home."  It was the perfect decision for us this year!  I got a little sad on Thanksgiving night, but other than that, we mostly just enjoyed being lazy and staying in our pj's half the day!

The day before Thanksgiving we got probably 6 inches of snow.  I'm with Lorelai--I think the first snow is magical!

This little guy is showing his Vermont roots.  He LOVED the snow.  He played in it for several hours both Wednesday and Thursday.

This guy, not so much.  We didn't stay out for long, because it was cold.  But he wasn't a huge fan.  

But I think he did enjoy being our little Turkey!

Seriously, how cute is that baby butt with feathers on it???

B     O     T     T     L     E

So Jack was a champ at taking a bottle.  Actually, Jack was just a champ at eating in general.

A quick reminder picture.  Jack the CHUNK!  As my friend said last night, Jack didn't have a neck for at least the first year of his life!

Gil is not the same way.  If he isn't really hungry, he doesn't care to eat.  And he doesn't want to eat too much.  He's just a little pickier.  And I didn't start him on the bottle soon enough.

I'm not trying to wean; I just want to be able to leave him for more than 2 1/2 hours before I need to be back again.  So I put a cry for help on facebook, gathered up all of the advice, and put it to action!

And this, my friends, is the result.  Actually this picture is from last week, and he only drank an ounce.  Yesterday, he had two bottles instead of nursing sessions, and he did great!  One was 4 ounces!

So here's what advice helped:

* Try out different bottles.  We tried out our Dr. Brown's (we have TONS because that's what Jack used), Medela (came with the pump), Nuk (borrowed from a friend), and Tommee Tippee (borrowed from a friend).  If those didn't work, I was going to order the Adiri because I have heard they are great. But he seems to really like the Tommee Tippee the best.

* Warm the milk.  Again, Jack just wanted to eat...you could serve him cold milk and he would gulp it down!  Baby Gil, not so much.  So warming the milk is really important.

* Have someone other than mom feed him.  I've asked a few friends to try and Bech has been trying.  Although for the second bottle feed yesterday, I was able to feed him!

* Don't feed him when he is already angry/upset/hungry!  I think this is perhaps the biggest advice that helped.  I tried giving him the bottle after feedings or when he first woke up but wasn't really fussing.  This method has been really helpful.  Hopefully, we will soon be to the point where we don't have to do this, but I think it is helping him calmly get used to the bottle.

So hopefully that will help someone out.

C     H     R     I     S     T     M     A     S

We are in full swing Christmas excitement around here.  I'm going to be honest, we aren't really doing the Anne Voskamp book at night.  I tried it the first night, and I think it's still just a little over Jack's head.  Hopefully next year will be different.  But Jack loves to read about Mary and Joseph going to "Beckleham."

I absolutely love Christmas and I love Christmas decorations.  Jack is the perfect little guy for me, because he gets so excited about all things Christmas (Bech, not so much!).

My mom sent a package with some dollar store Christmas happies for Jack.  I wrapped them one night and put them under the tree, thinking we could open one a day for the next several days.  Jack gets up REALLY early and comes into our room.  We always send him back to his room, telling him to play quietly.  Well last week after I wrapped the presents, he didn't go back to his room.  I came downstairs 15 minutes later and he had unwrapped every last present!  He was so excited.  I'm pretty he thought that was Christmas morning.  

So, yeah, we need to work on that waiting to open presents thing...

B     A     B     Y   *   G     I     L

Baby Gil is finally coming out of his colicky stage.  As long as he stays on his schedule, he is a happy, smiley little guy.  He still has a little bit of a witching hour at night, but I think part of that is because we don't get him down at time (putting two kids to bed is tough!).

I tried to get him to smile in this picture, but instead, he gave me his emo face.

We are pretty crazy about this little (almost 3 month old!) baby.  Jack loves to make him smile and tells Gil that he is his favorite.  

M     I     S     S     I     S     S     I     P     P     I

We head home in less than a week!  We will be in Mississippi for a little over 2 weeks and I can't wait. I plan on taking a nap EVERY SINGLE DAY.  Do you hear that, family?  Every day.

I also plan on playing family board games, eating yummy sushi, lots of laughs, and lots of resting.  I am worn out!  And I am sure that my family will be happy to hold Baby Gil and give me a break!

We are flying home this year.  I don't mind the drive home (we love staying with our friends in Nashville).  But I didn't really want to do it with a 3 month old.  We would have had to stop every 3 hours for almost 30 minutes each time!  That adds almost 3 hours to our trip time!  

So instead, we are flying with a 3 month old and 3 1/2 year old.  Really, I'm not sure which idea would have been crazier!  Jack was a dream to fly with at this age, so let's hope Gil will be too.  And I plan on bringing Jack's kindle with a new movie loaded and some Dimeatap (just being real, y'all).  I think we will get through it!